After Death

After Death ◦ 14 June 2023 ◦ Mountain View Christian Church 1 THE ETERNAL STATE Eternal Punishment and Eternal Reward 2 THE INTERMEDIATE STATE 3 THE STATE OF THE BELIEVING DEAD Terminolog y & Key Concerns THE STATE OF THE UNBELIEVING DEAD SUFFERING OR COMFORT AWARENESS FUTURE RESURRECTION 4 The term used to describe the state (condition, location) of the soul between physical death and the resurrection. 1. It is a disembodied state (2 Cor. 5:1–8). 2. It is a temporary state (1 Cor. 15:52). 3. For the unsaved, it is a state of suffering (Luke 16:23). 4. For the saved, it is a state of blessedness in the conscious enjoyment of being “with Christ” (Phil. 1:23; cf. 2 Cor. 5:8). 5. It is not a probationary state (Heb. 9:27). 6. It is terminated by the resurrection of the body, when the entire man, body and soul, enters into his final and everlasting state. Alan Cairns, Dictionary of Theological Terms (Belfast; Greenville, SC: Ambassador Emerald International, 2002), 239. 5 The intermediate state: Luke 16:19-31 Paradise A great gulf Torment 6 7 Location: Paradise The destination of the righteous after death Lk 23:43 This Persian term originally described a park or pleasure garden. It was used by the Jews of the Garden of Eden, and of the future blessedness of the saints. See also 2Co 12:34; Rev 2:7 Martin H. Manser, Dictionary of Bible Themes: The Accessible and Comprehensive Tool for Topical Studies (London: Martin Manser, 2009). 8 Location: The Heavenlies Heavenlies, The. The phrase en tois epouraniois (in the heavenlies) occurs five times in Ephesians (1:3, 20; 2:6; 3:10; 6:12) and nowhere else in the NT. The “heavenlies” is the spiritual sphere where God, Christ, the spiritual powers, and believers exist together. Believers, while they live in the physical world, simultaneously are seated with the risen Christ in the heavenlies, where they are enjoying spiritual blessings and engaged in the real battle for their souls with demonic powers. William D. Mounce, “Heavenlies, The,” ed. Daniel J. Treier and Walter A. Elwell, Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic: A Division of Baker Publishing Group, 2017), 371. 9 Location: Heaven Heaven. The most frequently used Hebrew word for heaven in the OT is šāmayîm, signifying “heaved up things” or “the heights.” In the Greek NT it is ouranos, which denotes “sky” or “air.” These words refer to the atmosphere just above the earth (Gen. 1:20, etc.); to the firmament in which the sun and moon and stars are located (1:17, etc.); to God’s abode (Ps. 2:4, etc.); and to the abode of the angels (Matt. 22:30). The OT has no word for universe, and to express the idea there is the frequent “heaven and earth.” We read of “the heaven and the heaven of heavens” (Deut. 10:14), and of a man’s being “caught up into the third heaven” (2 Cor. 12:2), but such references are probably to be thought of metaphorically. 10 Location: Heaven Although some, like Plato, imagine heaven to be a disembodied state where naked minds contemplate the eternal, unchanging ideas, in the Bible this is not so. According to Paul, the whole person survives. Even the body is raised again, so that, if it is no longer flesh and blood (1 Cor. 15:50), it nevertheless has a continuity with the present body, a sameness in form if not in material element (see Matt. 5:29, 30; 10:28; Rom. 8:11, 23; 1 Cor. 15:53). So there is nothing in the Bible (nor in the main creeds of the church) about disembodied spirits in the next world existing in a vacuum. 11 Location: Heaven Feasting there is evidently to be understood symbolically, according to Matthew 26:29 where Jesus speaks of that day when he will drink the fruit of the vine “new” with the disciples in his Father’s kingdom. In heaven the redeemed will be in the immediate presence of God and will forever feed on the splendor of God’s majesty, beholding the Father’s face. In the present life men “see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face” (1 Cor. 13:12). And the sons of God will see Christ “as he is” (1 John 3:2). The childlike in faith, even as the angels do now, will “always behold the face” of the Father (Matt. 18:10). They will not so much glory in the presence of Supreme Reason, as the Greeks anticipated, but in the wonder of the All-Holy One (Isa. 6:3; Rev. 4:8). And this God is a Father, in whose house (John 14:2) the redeemed will dwell, where “they will be his people,” and where “God himself will be with them” (Rev. 21:3). 12 Location: Heaven There will be activities in heaven to engage man’s highest faculties. For one thing, there will be governmental ministries. The “spirits of righteous men made perfect” (Heb. 12:23) will be in the “the heavenly Jerusalem, city of the living God” (12:22), and men are to assist in governing the whole. Thus in the parable of the nobleman the good servant, who has been “trustworthy in a very small matter” on earth, is in heaven to be given authority over ten cities (Luke 19:17). In Matthew the servant who had been given five talents and who had gained five talents more is told” “Well done, good and faithful servant!… I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!” (25:20–21). 13 Location: Heaven Perhaps new songs are to be written and sung (Rev. 5:9). The “redeemed from the earth,” too, are to learn a “new song” (14:3). And the kings of the earth are to “bring their splendor into it” (21:24). So while there is to be on the part of the redeemed a continuous worship in heaven, it seems to be in the sense that all activities engaged in will be for the sole glory of God and will therefore partake of the nature of worship. A. Elwell, Evangelical Dictionary of Theology: Second Edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2001), 541–542. 14 New Heavens and New Earth The formal conception of new heavens and a new earth occurs in Isa 65:17; 66:22; 2 Pet 3:13; Rev 21:1 (where “heaven,” singular). The idea in substance is also found in Isa 51:16; Mt 19:28; 2 Cor 5:17; Heb 12:26-28. In each case the reference is eschatological, indeed the adjective “new” seems to have acquired in this and other connections a semi-technical eschatological sense. It must be remembered that the Old Testament has no single word for “universe,” and that the phrase “heaven and earth” serves to supply the deficiency. The promise of a new heavens and a new earth is therefore equivalent to a promise of world renewal. James Orr, ed., The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: 1915 Edition (Albany, OR: Ages Software, 1999). 15 The Christian’s Hope 16